Leaving Las Vegas…Our trip to Minnesota…All is going great!!..

Our last view of the pool at the Green Valley Ranch Spa Casino Resort.
With today’s busy schedule, I wrote the text for the post while flying from Las Vegas to Minneapolis. There were only 60 passengers on the Southwest non-stop flight, and we were asked to choose our seats when we boarded rather than in advance.

That was unusual for us, although we’ve had a similar scenario when we have flown on small planes. But this plane has a capacity for about 175 passengers, so it was weird that so few were flying to MSP. We chose seats across the aisle from one another.

There were no entertainment screens on the flight, so I could play non-WiFi games on my phone, which I did for the first 45 minutes and got bored. At that point, I decided to write the post based on how little time we have tomorrow with one family event after another.

Leaving the hotel was seamless, and since we had to check out by noon, we decided to head directly to the airport. It’s a good thing we did. Tom dropped me and the three bags off at the airport at curbside check-in and drove off to return the rental car. We picked a spot where I’d wait for him. I waited and waited, and no Tom.

After a while, I became concerned when he didn’t show up—an hour had passed. Las Vegas airport is undoubtedly chaotic, but he should have returned sooner. I wasn’t sure if he’d turned on his phone after putting it on Do Not Disturb last night, but I called him on WhatsApp hoping he’d answer, but he did not.

I didn’t panic. Sooner or later, he would arrive. I needed to be patient. Finally, he appeared, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled to see him.

As it turned out, he’d accidentally left the computer bag in the rental car when he dropped it off. It had our passports, laptops, and essential documents. Also, it included his wallet with cash and credit cards. Oh, good grief. This could have been a major fiasco. Fortunately, the bus driver drove him back to the rental car return and the bag was still in the vehicle. Whew. He dodged a bullet.

He had to find his way back and forth on multiple bus rides to get the bag and make his way to the terminal to find me. I can only imagine how stressful that was for him. He surprised me by how calm he was when he finally arrived.

In no time, we made our way to the gate, where we waited for over 90 minutes to board our flight. Good thing we arrived so early.

As I wrote, when we were surprisingly comfortably situated on the plane, we appeared to be arriving in Minneapolis in no time at all. The flight was less than three hours long.

We got the rental car and headed to our hotel in Eden Prairie, where we will stay for the next month until we depart for South America.  All is good.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, September 10, 2013:
There was no post on this date ten years ago.

Making decisions, at long last…Planning for the future…Final Kruger photos…

This appears to be a martial eagle.

We’ve been having WiFi issues this morning that put quite a damper on projects I hoped to get done before starting today’s post. After booking several trips, we must log the information onto our spreadsheet while it’s fresh in our minds to ensure we don’t miss a thing.

We have accurate records in Expedia, Hotels.com, Google, and TripIt. Still, we like to keep detailed records on our Excel spreadsheet with all of our upcoming expenses to plan finances and events for the future. So, at a glance, we can see what we’ve prepaid, what we’ll have to pay in the future, and any credits or perks we may receive on any trip.

We never tire of seeing giraffes.

I just received a message from Louise that the WiFi provider stated, “The fiber supplier is down. We have logged a call with them and are waiting for feedback. We will update you as soon as we get any news.” We can only wait and see what transpires. I am writing the text for today’s post in the Notepad app on my laptop.

Yesterday, we booked the hotel in Minneapolis for September 9 to September 23 after hearing back from the general manager of the Hyatt in Eden Prairie, where we stayed only months ago. He suggested we contact him when we knew we’d be returning, and we did so yesterday by email due to the time difference. We liked the ambiance, the spacious room, the breakfast, the cleanliness, and the friendly staff.

This appears to be an older male since his spots are dark.

He offered us a reasonable US $25, ZAR 437 off per night, the best rate we found online, for the 14 nights we’ll be staying. Also, we booked the hotel at the Boston Logan Airport, where we’ll stay when we visit cousin Phyllis on August 30 before heading to Nevada. All we have left to do for that trip is book a rental car and a flight to Minneapolis, and we’ll be set for both trips to see family.

It made sense to stay at the airport hotel and take an Uber to meet Phyllis for dinner closer to her home, so she won’t have to drive far. Our flight the following day, the only non-stop we could get to Las Vegas, departs Boston at 7:00 am. This way, we won’t have to deal with leaving so early for the airport for the upcoming domestic flight.

We’re always thinking of ways to make travel days easier and less stressful. Sometimes we may pay a little more for such conveniences, but overall, we manage to make it work each time affordably, barring a few errors we may make from time to time, all of which we’ve shared here.

Giraffes don’t approach humans in a wild environment. They are relatively shy and stay away from humans, even in Marloth Park.

Once we had these bookings completed, we started discussing where we wanted to spend the remaining ten months until we returned to Marloth Park, when in July, August, or September 2024, daughter Tammy and family are coming to visit and stay with us at this house. That’s very exciting to us. It will be the first time any of our kids will come to see us in Africa. It’s a long way to travel and must take a lot of vacation time, considering four days is required for travel alone.

After many discussions over the past few months, we’ve decided we’ll be spending those ten months or so in South America, where we’ve been longing to see a few particular World Heritage locations, the Galapagos Island, and our long-time dream of traveling to the Pantanal, the largest marsh and ecologically diverse place on the planet.

This appears to be a mom and her youngster, who may be about a year old.

Yesterday, our rep at Vacations-to-Go reserved a cabin for us on a 16-passenger expedition ship which will take us to see the Galapagos for 11 nights, including a four-day land tour and a seven-night cruise. Our cruise rep was going on vacation, so she reserved one of the two remaining cabins for us until she returns on February 15, at which point we’ll pay the deposit and firm up the details about the cruise. We’ll share more information at that time.

We had been using Costco for cruises, but this particular cruise’s pricing and response time were better at Vacations-to-Go.

Over the years, as we’ve mulled over visiting the Pantanal, more venues and houseboat-type cruises have become available, making the journey a little easier for us than sitting in a small row boat for hours each day. After all, we are senior citizens, and although we’re relatively sturdy, comfort enhances our experiences. In any case, it’s not the most comfortable journey, basically staying in a swamp/marsh for a week or more. But we’re anxious to see all the unusual wildlife in this unique area.

A mom and a curious youngster, as we drove past.

Last night, once again, we had a fun evening at Jabula, laughing, chatting, and commiserating with Dawn, Leon and David, and many other guests at the restaurant. Oddly, we ran into a couple from The Netherlands we’d seen at the immigration office in Nelspruit only days ago, also applying for a visa extension. It’s a Small world.

On another note, last Friday, we met a lovely young couple from the US at Jabula on Sunday night, and then on Monday, we ran into them driving on the paved road in Kruger. They, too, had been taking photos of the lion kill we’d posted on Tuesday this past week. What another funny coincidence.

The WiFi returned with a nice message from Tech Connect, our provider. They are very responsive, which means a lot to us. Now, I can get today’s post uploaded and work on entering information for the bookings mentioned above.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, February 4, 2022:

No photo was posted on this date one year ago.

Enjoyable Sunday…Family and football..


From our post on December 5, 2013…Down the road another block, several giraffes were hanging outside one of the houses in Marloth Park. This giraffe was eating, which accounts for the chubby cheeks. The food slides down her throat in a big lump, as shown. See the post here.

Yesterday, we spent most of the day at Greg’s home in Chaska, about a 20-minute drive from here. We stopped at Target to get some football-watching snacks. It was fun to watch the game with Greg and the kids, who wandered in and out of the family room during the three-hour game, chatting with us on each occasion.

When Camille returned from Christmas shopping, it was great to catch up with her. By about 4:00 pm, we were going back to the hotel to make a plan for dinner and put away all the laundry we’d washed and dried at their house. With the clothes we purchased at Target when we arrived last Saturday, we only had two loads of laundry.

It was great to use a clothes dryer. It had been a long time since we had access to a clothes dryer. Everything came out unwrinkled, and nothing shrank. We’d each bought a few flannel shirts to stay warm, and I was concerned they’d all shrink, but this morning I am wearing one of those shirts, and there was no shrinkage whatsoever. Even my flannel pajamas came out perfectly.

We begin thinking about any items we may need before leaving the US, knowing we won’t return for nine months. Saying goodbye this time will be a lot easier, knowing we’ll return next September at the end of two cruises. We’ll also head to Nevada to see Richard and renew our driver’s licenses in our state of residence.

While here, we’ve made several phone calls to see if we qualify for any refunds or credits due to our recent travel fiasco. But we’ll need to wait until we return to South Africa to get the wheels in motion. Ethiopian Air doesn’t consider our bags “lost” until 25 days have passed, so we can’t file a claim until then. Our credit card lost baggage benefit will also require documentation from the airline showing our bags are considered lost. We have no choice but to wait.

Now, my centipede fear has some competition. After a massive storm last night, our pool was filled with dead insects. This morning, Tom fished out this scorpion. Carefully, we tread.

It appears we won’t be able to recover any part of the loss of the cruise fare. This is frustrating, but they consider the obstacle we encountered “our fault.” We take full responsibility for the fiasco but are disappointed with the cruise company, and Intrepid Travel didn’t give us a heads-up when we inquired about any governmental documents we may have needed to enter Seychelles. There’s nothing more we can do. It’s frustrating.

But, as always, we must pick ourselves up and carry on and focus on the positives in our lives for which we feel grateful and fulfilled. Slowly, I am beginning to feel better, but the headache pops up every few days and the facial pain remains. I don’t know if I am going to seek further treatment. At this point, I feel like I have tried everything possible.

Perhaps, I have to resign myself to these lingering Omicron symptoms, and in time, they will improve. It is not debilitating in a manner that impacts our lives, but I am aware of it each day. I make a concerted effort to stay cheerful and take extra good care of myself. I am still using the various nasal treatments which, luckily, I had in my carry-on bag. When we fly on the 16-hour flight from Newark to Joburg, I won’t be able to use the products since it’s not sanitary in the plane’s restrooms.

In only three days, we’ll be on our way. Our first flight from Minneapolis to Newark is at 2:00 pm on Thursday. We have a long layover in Newark, 3 hours and 20 minutes, and then we’re off to Joburg on the 16-hour flight. Once we arrive in Joburg we’ll stay overnight at the City Lodge airport hotel to catch our flight on Airlink the following day. This way, we avoid driving to Marloth Park in the dark on the dangerous N4 Highway.

Soon, we head out to make one more stop at Target for a few items, and then Tom will drop me off at my friend Chere’s home in Eden Prairie for a few-hour visit with a dear old friend.

That’s it for today, friends. Have a great day!

Photo from one year ago today, December 5, 2021:

It’s only on the hottest days that Little sits in the cement pond. For more photos, please click here.

Change in plans, nothin’ to it…We’re flexible…Photos from nine years ago today!…


We posted today’s photos from nine years ago when we arrived in Marloth Park for the first time. For the story, please click here.

Note: Due to the reposting of old photos, there are spacing issues in today’s post.

The more time passes, the more we’ve adapted to the recent reality of our change of plans. A kind reader wrote and called our unexpected time with loved ones as bonus time with family”. Indeed it has been. We’re enjoying every moment. But life continues for everyone and last night’s plans changed at the last minute.

Our plans to go to Champs for dinner changed. Greg and Madighan were both sick and didn’t want to infect us. Instead, we took Miles, Maisie, and her boyfriend Nick to dinner at a restaurant in their area. We had a lovely time with the kids. Tonight at 5:15, we’re meeting Tammy, Tracy, Vincent, and Tracy’s mom Lena (who’s visiting from Pennsylvania), at Benihana, a popular teppanyaki restaurant, to celebrate Vincent’s 17th birthday, which is on December 15.

We’re busy, but not so busy we don’t have time to take care of some things while we’re here and prepare a new post each day. It’s nice not to feel rushed. We’ve been getting up by 6:00 each morning, having the included breakfast in the hotel by 7:00, and back in our room by 8:00 to work on tasks at hand and the day’s post.

Love the baby! We didn’t need to see many wildebeest during the Great Migration. They are here in our neighborhood, hopefully making a personal visit soon.

Tom’s enjoying watching football on NFL GamePass requires him to use our VPN, showing we are outside the US since the app won’t work while we’re in the US.

Soon, when the housekeeper comes to clean our room (they only clean every other day at this hotel), we’ll head out for a few items we need at Walgreen and quickly stop at our bank for some cash. Then, we won’t have anything to do other than begin calling the credit card company to see if they can help with any of our losses based on the benefits offered by the cards.

We aren’t expecting to recover anything. If we do, it will be a pleasant surprise and a perk we hadn’t anticipated. I’ve spent considerable time shopping on Amazon in the event our bags are lost for good. My bag contained every warm-weather clothing item I owned that was hanging in the closet in Marloth Park. Sure I have some tee shirts, but all my nice tops and pants were in that bag, along with 80% of my underwear and pajamas.

We didn’t know that baby zebras have fluffy hair and short bodies until seeing one up close and personal. Too cute!

!

The clothing we purchased at Target when we arrived without any baggage is all cold-weather items, all of which we’ll be able to wear during the upcoming cruise to Norway and again in the cool winters in Africa. For Tom, it’s not much different. We ordered him several short-sleeve button-up shirts he wears when we go to dinner or meet with friends. Also, he desperately needed some new tee shirts.

Nothing we purchased will have been in vain. I desperately needed some new items when I’d come to the point of tossing out old and worn items. I don’t think I will ever wear the shirt I wore on the trip here for 56 hours. I can’t even look at it. I had to toss the black pants I wore during that period when they were full of holes when we arrived here. I don’t know why that happened.

Several of our readers wrote inquiring about my headache during all this commotion. My headache improved after the last round of antibiotics, which I ffinished almost a week ago, but I am left with frequent sneezing and nose-blowing. Maybe once and for all, this is clearing out. The headache and facial pain are not entirely gone, but it’s much improved. I believe all the sneezing and blowing is allergy and sinusitis based, not a cold or virus, since otherwise, I feel fine.

Nine years ago today…she was wonderful then and she’s wonderful now! Louise stocked the cupboard with nuts, seasoning, and other foodstuffs that we use. Gosh, I haven’t had the use of a plastic container with a lid in almost a year. I’ll be spoiled!

There’s still quite a bit of Covid in the US with over 39,000 new cases recorded two days ago. We still see several shoppers wearing masks. But also, several other viruses, many as serious as Covid/Omicron, are rampant in the US and other countries.

We can’t help but remember how sick we were when we were here seven months ago. Hopefully, this residual sinusitis problem I developed with Omicron will soon be resolved with time and continuing treatments which I’ve diligently followed since we arrived last Saturday. It’s hard to believe that we’ll be heading back to Marloth Park in a mere six days. We’ve enjoyed being here but look forward to our return, as always.

That’s it for today, folks. Thank you for all the support and encouragement from many of our readers/friends. We appreciate every one of you!

Be well

Photo from one year ago today, December 2, 2021:

This may be a Southern Masked Weaver, who’s about to enter her nest. For more photos, please click here.

Generous support and kindness from our readers….Getting Tom’s google account restored today…

Seated over the wing on our way to South Africa on this date in 2013, some of our views were obstructed. But the Heavens offered up this cloudy view. For more photos, please click here.

We have received many messages from readers, not only as comments on particular posts but also by email. We’ve made a point to respond to each one as promptly as possible and hope we haven’t missed responding to you. The outpouring of love and concern fills us with such joy that it surely makes the daily efforts to post new stories with photos meaningful and purposeful. Thank you!

This morning, at 10:40, we have an appointment with the Geek Squad at the Best Buy store in this neighborhood. Louise went to our house, picked up Tom’s two old phones, and charged them, but only one worked. The Geek Squad tech will submit a request to Google for a code that will come to that phone. Once Louise sees that code, she will tell us, and the technician can proceed from there. There will be no more for Louise to do.

Fortunately, she could get into the house, find the phones and do this for us. We are very grateful. We’ll undoubtedly figure out some unique way to show our appreciation once we return to Marloth Park, although she’ll dismiss her efforts as “nothing at all.” But having her and Danie always providing us with so much help means more to us than we can say.

Hopefully, this process works, and by this afternoon, Tom will have his laptop functioning and his new Google Pixel 6a phone. We are holding our breath that this process works. If not, Tom will have to create a new email address which will cause so much work for him to go into every app, file, and website he uses and change the email, which is time-consuming and cumbersome. It could take him weeks to accomplish this task.

Yesterday afternoon, as mentioned, we visited Tom’s brother Jerome at his house in Coon Rapids. As it turned out, seven of us had stopped by, including daughter Tammy, grandson Vincent, sisters Colleen and Patty, and niece Jeanne. After a three-hour visit, we all took off for dinner at Texas Roadhouse. We all shared a large booth, ordered drinks, and enjoyed fresh, delicious meals.

I ordered salmon and salad, and Tom ordered steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans. The rest of the group ordered steaks and ribs, which were huge portions, and all said everything was delicious. The service was exemplary, and Tom added a generous tip to the bill. Later, Jerome’s daughter Kathy stopped by for a drink. It was a lovely afternoon and evening.

Tonight at 7:00 pm, we’re meeting Greg and his family at Champps for dinner. It’s not as if we can go on a picnic or do outdoor activities in this cold weather. It’s often cold after a snowstorm for several days. This morning it was 6F, -14.4C, but fortunately, it is warming up during the day. Today’s high will be 31F, -.55C. According to the weather report, there doesn’t appear to be much snow on the horizon until we leave a week from today.

We’re heading off to the Geek Squad at Best Buy now. We’ll report the results when we return.

We just returned from the Geek Squad. After about an hour, we got Tom’s Gmail account restored, and now his laptop and new phone are working. We called Louise, who had his old broken phone in her hand, and she gave us the code that popped up that made it possible to restore his Google account. What a relief! Thank you, Louise!!!

Best Buy only charged $40 for the help. While we were there, we purchased a portable phone charger. When Connie visited us (when Jeff passed away), we saw her use a separate phone charger which should be helpful for us when we travel. We’ve been on several planes lately that don’t have USB plugins, and we were cautious about freely using our phones. With this external charger, we can use our phones as we like.

The Anker, Slim and Powerful +46 hours will be perfect for us on many occasions. I will keep it in my bag when we head out and perhaps forget to recharge our phones or run them down from use.

Tom’s happy with his new phone, and I’m so glad not to have to think about this anymore. One problem was solved and is now out of the way. Now, we have bigger “fish to fry” contacting our credit card company to discuss the coverage included for lost bags. We will report back the results.

Not much here in the way of photos. I haven’t wanted to pressure family members to have their photos taken for publication. Not everyone is comfortable with this, and we surely understand.

Have a wonderful day!!!

Photo from one year ago today, December 1, 2021:

A yellow-billed stork with a reflection in the water at the Sunset Dam near Lower Sabie in Kruger National Park. For more photos, please click here.

Taking advantage of every moment we can spend with family…Snowstorm in the area…

It was hard to believe we were experiencing winter weather.

Today, we’re staying at the hotel when it’s a very snowy day and dangerous on the roads. This unexpected visit somehow ended up being better timing for our kids to spend time with us, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. We are delighted to be spending such quality time with our family members.

The clothing situation continues to be of concern. We went for a quick trip to the pharmacy for a few odds and ends to replace items we needed to use here that were in our lost duffle bags. Here’s the dilemma…if our bags are truly lost, and we never get them back, we need to replace the lost items.

The bags contained almost every one of our hot weather items. Also included were swimwear, shoes, underwear, casual and dressy tops for me, and every pair of pants we currently wear while in South Africa. I’d recently had a couple of old jeans cut off and hemmed by seamstress Tracy at Daisy’s Den into a pair of shorts I was looking forward to wearing in hot weather.

After considerable discussion, we decided to purchase new clothing with the idea that we won’t be getting back our bags. Why not wait and see? Simple reason by our standards…neither can find any clothing we like while in South Africa. Most women aren’t as tall as me, so buying pants is nearly impossible outside the US. Tom has similar issues buying clothes and prefers certain brands he knows they fit him well and last for a long time.

This morning, I started searching through Amazon.com and putting items into our cart that I knew Amazon could deliver to this hotel in time for our December 8th departure. I actually enjoyed online shopping, especially when I knew the prices are excellent on Amazon and I could predict the quality of anything I bought based on experience.

We hadn’t purchased jackets, only sweatshirts, and hoodies, so it was cold when Tom brushed the snow off the car.

It felt good to get this task accomplished on this snowy day. Meanwhile, we contacted our travel insurance company about the missing luggage. We can file a claim for missing baggage. The claim is to cover some of the cost of the replacement clothing and miscellaneous items we needed to replace for almost two weeks in Minnesota. We don’t have to wait for the bags to be found.

Then we got to work calling about how we could renew our passports. Our ten-year passport ran out a year ago, which we replaced with a four-year passport when we were here a few years ago. Now that passport will run out in January 2024. That seems like it’s long enough away not to worry.

However, our upcoming cruises require that we have no less than six months remaining on our passports to sail. This is becoming a common requirement for many travel venues. As it turns out, we cannot apply for a passport renewal while we’re here in the US since doing so requires we mail our existing passports during the application process. We can’t take the risk that the passports won’t get to us in time for travel in nine days.

Our only alternative is to go to a US Embassy while we are in South Africa in either Johannesburg or Cape Town. That’s what we’ll have to do sometime in the next five months…one more trip on our agenda. However, this will allow us to visit Cape Town, which we’ve wanted to do for quite a while. But we’ve been so content in Marloth Park, we haven’t traveled much to other parts of the country.

The rest of this week is busy. Yesterday afternoon, Tom spent time with his son TJ which we’ll do again before we leave next week. Tomorrow, we’ll head out with daughter Tammy and grandson Vincent to visit Tom’s sister Patty and elder brother Jerome who recently turned 94 along with Tom’s sister Colleen who will join all of us. Thursday evening we’re going to dinner with Greg’s family.

We’re pretty much planning to spend most days or evenings with our kids and grandkids. We are excited about every event with our family members. We would love to have time to see our friends here but time is short and since we didn’t have an opportunity to see anyone due to our being sick with Omicron in May. We’re certainly making up for lost time now.

Tonight, we have leftover food we purchased at the grocery store for last night’s dinner and we will stay in, rather than venture out for dinner in the snowy weather. All is good here.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, November 29, 2021:

Two elephants flapped their ears as we passed. For more photos, please click here.

For our Minnesota reader/friends…What did you think of yesterday’s Vikings game?…Names for Lollie’s piglets…

This is an African Hoopoe we spotted in the garden.

Last night, when we hunkered down for the night, Tom began watching the Minnesota Vikings football game using the app for which he pays each year, with replays of all US football games. I am supposed to take one 10 mg. tablet of Amitriptyline early each night, at 9:00 pm, 2100 hrs., so I am not groggy when I awake. But, usually, I am sleepy enough to nod off an hour after I take it.

Earlier, the WiFi was out for a few hours, so we watched a movie on the external hard drive, picked randomly since we had no way to look up the movie’s content or reviews. It was called Beast of Burden, a somewhat ridiculous premise, but with load shedding and no WiFi simultaneously, it’s what we had to keep us busy until the WiFi returned.

Once the movie ended and the WIFi returned, we could stream a few episodes of Animal Kingdom on Amazon Prime and later watch the Minnesota Vikings Game, which had played at 8:00 pm, 2000 hrs. At around 10:00 pm, 22000 hrs., Tom started watching the Vikings game while I couldn’t help but fall asleep.

This bird seems to hang out with Vega, a common starling. Is it the female of the species?

I should mention that Tom is a silent viewer of football games. Regardless of what happens, he is quiet and doesn’t make a sound, as much as he loves watching. But, the weird thing about this drug left me dozing off and on while I heard every play in the game.

Last night, in the fourth quarter, with one minute remaining in the game, he couldn’t keep quiet and yelled out, totally awakening me from my “twilight sleep.” Oddly, I heard what was happening in my sleep and would have been jolted awake anyway. What transpired in the game in the next hour blew our minds. It was the most exciting game we’d ever seen.

For Minnesotans and Vikings fans throughout the US and possibly the world, we held our breath along with you after one stunning play after another. We were so wound up after the win that we couldn’t attempt to sleep until after 1:00 am. Tom fell asleep, but I didn’t, not getting sleepy again until after 2:00 am.

We both ended up with enough sleep and felt rested today. But we’re still reeling from the excitement. What a night.

Lollie arrived this morning with her three piglets. We were happy to see them. We named the two boys Leon and Leopold and the female Lolita.

Today is much cooler with lower humidity, which is quite a relief. The temp is 80F, 27C, the sky is cloudy, and there’s a lovely breeze. The dew point is still tropical at 67, with the humidity at a more tolerable 65%. With many holidaymakers gone after the weekend, we’ve started to see our wildlife friends return for a visit.

After being absent for several days, other than to show up last week with her new piglets, we were delighted to see Lollie return this morning with them in tow. She brought them to us the day they were born and stayed away, other than a few stops without them, for pellets, carrots, apples, and lucerne.

We were worried something had happened to the three piglets, and then we realized she had wanted to show them off to us but then tucked them away for a few days to allow them to grow and feed before she brought them back. This morning, we were thrilled to see the four of them offering plenty of treats good for her.

Our boy Norman, the dad of Noah, and partner of Nina, our favorite family visitors.

We never feed the animals “bad” food, only nourishing pellets, fruits, and vegetables suitable for their diets. We look online at reputable sites to see what foods are appropriate for them based on their digestion and eating habits. Most herbivores do well with vegetables and fruit but not corn.

Our friend Lynne from Jersey, UK, stopped by for a visit this morning. They arrived a few days ago, and we’re excited to see her again. We will get together with her and her hubby Mick when we return from our upcoming trip.

We’ll be back with more soon!

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, November 14, 2021:

This is Stringy. Notice the strings from digging roots between his horns. For more photos, please click here.

Comment section activated again…Tom is improving…Two days and counting…

Rapids on the Sabe River in Kruger National Park.

.Our “comments” section at the end of each post is working again. We disabled it almost a year ago due to an excessive amount of pornographic spam we received each day. If this happens again, there are “plug-ins” our web people can implement on our site to avoid spam, and your comments will come through.

This feature is set, allowing me to see each comment before posting it. This does allow me to moderate any reader comments that we’d prefer not to post, such as unsuitable language, hater comments, and politically incorrect or racist comments. Thus, none of the spam will be published.

We won’t hesitate to post comments from our readers that may not agree with our point of view, and most certainly, we will respond. However, comments intended to denigrate, ridicule, or harass us in any manner will be passed by. Life is hard enough for all of us to be subject to hateful comments in these trying times.

Several days ago, before we went to Urgent Care for Tom, when we were sneezing a lot with tremendous nasal congestion, we started over-the-counter Flonase. This nasal allergy spray has dramatically improved those symptoms. (Please see your medical professional for any medications you may use for the treatment of Covid). As for today, although Tom is still coughing a lot, he is feeling a little better and less exhausted, with fewer headaches and nasal congestion.

Tom has stopped using liquid cough medicine and cough drops based on the prescribed gel caps, which seem to help. I’d anticipated he may have trouble sleeping after taking the first dose of Cortisone yesterday, which is used to treat the inflammation in his lungs, but he slept well last night.

As for my symptoms, I still feel sluggish, out-of-sorts, and tire easily. I have a few short periods of headaches off and on throughout the day and a fair amount of coughing with congestion. But, the dry cough is gone. It’s been 23 days since we both tested positive and developed symptoms. Fortunately, neither of us continues to test positive.

Tomorrow afternoon at 4:30, we will drive to son Greg and DIL Camille’s home to say hi to them and three of our grandchildren. We won’t be getting out of the car or hugging anyone. Grandson Miles is still testing positive. We can’t take any chances. The hard part will be not being able to hug anyone. We saw them last July, ten months ago, but a hug would have been nice.

We’ll do the same with Tom’s family and are setting that up today…a drive-by hello and goodbye. Gee, what is this world coming to? This pandemic has changed all of our lives in so many ways.

In two days, we’ll be flying out of Minneapolis to Las Vegas, arriving in the evening, hoping Tom is feeling well enough by then that we can see Richard. By then, next Monday, we shouldn’t be contagious anymore. But, we’ll leave it up to Richard if he is comfortable being around us. Here again, we can only play it by ear.

As for today, it’s another low-key day, mainly working on getting well. We’re eating healthy food and have enough on hand to last us until we check out this hotel on Sunday to head to the airport. We’ll be asking for a late checkout since our flight isn’t until 3:39 pm.

We won’t be required to produce a negative Covid-19 test since the flight is domestic, and none is required. While in Henderson, Nevada, we’ll need to get a negative test before we depart for South Africa, which hopefully won’t be a problem.

That’s it for today, folks. Take care and be well.

Photo from one year ago today, May 13, 2021:

On the return drive from Kruger, we encountered this intentional fire in the sugar cane fields. For more photos, please click here.

One day and counting…Tom is on the mend…Maybe seeing family today…

Last July out to dinner on Camille’s birthday with my son Greg, wife Camille, and three grandchildren, Madighan, Miles, and Maisie. I wish we could have done something like this while we were here this time.

Tomorrow afternoon at 3:45, our flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas takes off. Hauling all of our bags at the confusing and overly busy airport in Las Vegas is daunting. It’s not as simple as deboarding the plane and making our way to baggage claim.

We have to take a train with our bags to a waiting area to take a shuttle to the car rental area. The last time we arrived in Las Vegas, we had to stand in line for almost an hour to board the shuttle to get to the rental car area and then wait another 30 minutes to get the car.

At this point in our Covid-19 recovery, I can’t imagine either of us standing for so long, especially while handing the bags without a trolley which isn’t allowed in the queue. Yesterday, we discussed the possibility of leaving me at the pickup level with all of the bags while Tom does this part on his own.

I wish I could do this for him, but the rental car is in his name as the only driver, and they’d never turn the car over to me. It’s the nature of the beast. But, it will be a whole lot easier for him without the bags in tow. Once he gets the car, he’ll drive to the area where I’ll be waiting for him. He’ll call me when he arrives. I’ll have the bags with me on the trolley.

Once we load the bags, we’ll be on our way to the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Henderson, about a 20-minute drive from the airport. Then, we’ll begin to focus on our recovery. We haven’t made plans with Richard yet, but we probably won’t see him and his girlfriend until Monday night for dinner.

There are numerous restaurants in the resort. We are never happy with room service food, preferring to have more control over what we’ll have for dinner. On Monday morning, for the first time in almost four weeks, we’ll have breakfast in a restaurant, the lovely Lucky Penny restaurant in the casino. It will be easy for us to do another night of takeaway, which we’ll have in our room.

Tom is feeling well enough he doesn’t see any benefit to returning to Urgent Care. Once we return to Marloth Park in 10 days, we’ll book appointments with Dr. Theo to be checked for any residual symptoms we may be experiencing at that time. We’re hoping by that time, we’ll be fully recovered but based on how slow improvement has been,

I’m not entirely sure we’ll be free of symptoms. We will be very grateful if we are free of the annoying and uncomfortable symptoms that have lingered for 3½ weeks since we initially tested positive on April 20 while still on the ship.

This morning, I am doing our final loads of laundry. It’s taking everything I have in me to manage these two loads of laundry. This may be the last time we’ll do laundry until we arrive in South Africa on May 24. Everything we do is in slow motion right now.

This afternoon, we plan to drive over to Greg and Camille’s house and see everyone from the car. No kissing. No hugging. Just quick hellos and goodbyes from the vehicle with our masks on. With us still coughing, it’s too risky for them to be too close to us, and with Miles’ recent positive tests, any of them could be asymptomatic, carrying a variant different from our recent infection.

Too much is still unknown about Covid. With conflicting opinions online on the length of contagion while still experiencing active symptoms, it’s vague about the potential of us infecting anyone else. We are most likely safe, but we are also concerned about getting reinfected by others.

So there it is folks. We are very grateful that getting Covid wasn’t worse than it was, requiring hospitalization. Our two weeks in Minnesota were spent in isolation in a hotel room once again.  We are anxious to get on with our lives, hopefully soon.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, May 14, 2021:

Three wildebeests were lying in the driveway shortly before Dawn and Leon arrived for sundowners. For more photos, please click here.

Hiding in the bathroom during tornado warnings!…A delightful surprise from a local reader/friend!!!…Three days and counting…

What a fantastic surprise and treat. I couldn’t be more grateful to friend/reader Joanette for her thoughtfulness.

We were watching another episode of Outlander. With Tom’s bad hearing and now stuffy head, we had the streaming show on the TV loud. Surprisingly, these rooms in the hotel are fairly sound-proof. But I heard some strange noises outside,  sounding like a train.

Immediately, I jumped up from the bed, and then we heard the sirens. Tornadoes had been sighted in Eden Prairie, exactly where we are located. Indeed, we were in the midst of a severe weather warning, requiring everyone to take shelter. We turned off the streaming show to get to the news.

This container is filled with delicious low-carb chocolate muffins. Note the recipe on top by zooming in.

Opening the door when I heard noises in the hallway, I saw no less than 20 people sitting on the corridor floor, their backs to the wall, waiting out the storm. We decided to stay in the room but moved all the “important” stuff into the windowless bathroom where we’d be safe from flying glass or worse if this hotel complex were to be hit directly.

We couldn’t get a good stream on our phones or laptops with weather reports. When the sirens ended, we returned to the room and checked the TV for weather reports which continued for hours. Winds in the range of 80 to 90 mph (128 km to 145 kph) came through along with some “touching down,” but fortunately not enough to do much damage other than to roofs and trees).

We sighed with relief. It had been a while since we encountered such a tornado-producing storm. It had been almost ten years ago when we still lived in Minnesota. Severe spring and summer storms are common in Minnesota and the midwest. Entire towns are wiped out due to significant tornadoes.

The bag of sugar-free chocolate chips will come in handy when we return to Marloth Park.

In any case, last night’s storm died down, and we could finish watching our show until we were ready to go to sleep. More of the same caliber storms are predicted for today, so we’ll keep an eye out and take shelter again if necessary.

Yesterday, Joanette, a long-time reader/friend who lives in the Minneapolis area, sent me an email stating she was stopping by with a container of low-carb chocolate muffins she’d made. I was blown away by her generosity and thoughtfulness. We’ve been sitting in this hotel room for the past 11 days, and a treat like this means the world to me.

Joanette had included this lovely card with a special message on the inside and the back. See below.

I explained we wouldn’t see her when she and her hubby came to the hotel. We didn’t want to take any chances whatsoever, for them, for us. But, when the front desk called at noon, saying a package had been delivered for me, I swooned with delight.  Joanette included a good-sized container of the most delicious low carb (2 grams each) chocolate muffin, but she included a thoughtful card, a bag of sugar-free chocolate chips, and a beautiful card, photos of which I’ve included here today.

It was hard for me not to try the muffins all day, but I resisted and waited until after dinner, when I made a dessert-like ritual of putting two muffins on the glass plate and savoring every bite. Tom doesn’t do well eating dark chocolate, so he won’t eat any of the muffins, which is a plus for me.

In 2017, we met Joanette for the first time when we had a get-together here in Minneapolis for our local readers. She brought me one of those muffins on that occasion, knowing I followed a low carb/keto way of eating. Since I can’t get all of the ingredients in most countries, I never made them, although I often thought about that muffin when craving something chocolate. I devoured that single muffin that night, and she remembered how much I loved it.

This message, on the back of the card, reminded us of our lives, always on a mission to adapt to circumstances, regardless of how hard they may be. We’ve used pool water on many occasions to flush the toilet!

Now in the tiny kitchen is a container stocked with the chocolate muffins (minus the two I ate last night), and it’s such a treat for me. It couldn’t have come at a better time. Thank you, Joanette!!! You are a kind and generous soul!!!

Now, Thursday, we are only three days from departing for Las Vegas. Tom started the Cortisone today, as prescribed, in addition to day three of two antibiotics, along with the other medications. Hopefully, this medication will escalate his recovery to another level, making it possible for us to fly to Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon. He says if we were leaving today, he could do it. But, I am happy it’s not for another three days, giving him more time to recover. He’s got a long way to go to recover.

When the housekeeper cleans our room today, we’ll head back to Cub Foods for a few more items to get us through the next three days so we won’t have to go out to eat or do takeaway. We haven’t had a single meal in a restaurant since we got off the ship infected with Covid-19, on April 21, over three weeks ago.

Since we can’t see family, I can’t wait to return to Marloth Park to make a tasty, healthy dinner with a big side salad to savor while seated on the veranda overlooking the garden, watching an entirely new batch of wildlife stopping by to check us out. New wildlife friends will be made, new names will be introduced, and if “safari luck” prevails, we may see a few familiar wildlife friends from our last house in the bush.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, May 12, 2021:

What an interesting bird! It’s a spooned-billed stork we spotted at Sunset Dam in Kruger National Park. For more, please click here.